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“We are often asked whether now is the right time for a climate attack. There are other crises, such as that of Putin, to address.”
With these words, German activist Elisa Bas addressed reporters ahead of Friday for Future’s tenth global strike on March 25.
For the past two years, the youth-led climate movement has not only been organizing around COVID measures — which limited its trademark demonstrations — but also around a barrage of headlines. The pandemic, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and the war in Ukraine have dominated the news cycle for months and even years on end.
But a lot of the movement has decided that it needs to Incorporate other emergency situationsInstead of competing for attention, get involved in its activism.
Fridays for Future activists protested in Berlin, Germany against the Russian invasion Ukraine, March 3, 2022
“We’re not trying to have crises compete against each other,” said Jule Pehnte, an activist with Fridays for Future Germany. “We shouldn’t treat them individually, but question the systems behind them. The war in Ukraine, for example, is funded by fossil fuel purchases.
The German chapter will support Ukraine’s cause by supporting the latest global strike. The goal is to convince leaders to stop buying Russia’s fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy. A move that would stifle Vladimir Putin’s economy and help the climate at the same time.
Jule Pehnt is an activist for Fridays for Future in Freiburg, Germany.
A shift towards social issues
Each Fridays for Future chapter interpreted the global strike’s rallying call “People Not Profit” in its own way. Mexican activists decided to highlight Indigenous, LGBT and women’s groups to show how their experiences overlap with climate concerns.
“It’s actually easy to connect the issues because the climate crisis is also a social crisis,” said Regina Cabrera of Fridays for Future Mexico. She also said that it is difficult to separate topics like land grabbing and fighting over limited resources from the environment.
According to Darrick Evensen, a professor of environmental politics at the University of Edinburgh, the youth activists’ message has shifted more towards such social issues during the pandemic, possibly because people have been confronted with secondary effects of the COVID crisis.
“The rhetoric is changing.” He told DW last summer.“It seems that the emphasis on science is declining, and it’s becoming more of a mixed image in terms of the interests represented.”
Regina Cabrera, activist on climate issues, sees them as social issues.
Yusuf Baluch who organizes with the chapter dedicated to “most affected people and areas,” Fridays for Future MAPA, has also noticed this evolution. Before moving to the UK, he lived for a time in Balochistan. This is a region that is divided between Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan. He says that he was able to connect with many other organizers around the world after the pandemic, which he believes led him to take his activism online.
“We got to know about each other’s resistance and struggles,” Baluch said. “We began to talk more about how issues such as gender equality, Ukraine and Palestine, Afghanistan, and the AIDS crisis are interconnected with the climate crisis.”
Yusuf Baluch, the man in the row to the left, said that organizing online has allowed him to connect with activists from all around the globe.
Climate struggles:
But some activists can’t help feeling frustrated that climate concerns often only make it into the limelight if they are attached to other issues making international headlines.
Activist Joy Koech from Fridays for Future Kenya says she doesn’t want to diminish the crises abroad. Still, she is sometimes worried that her country’s climate struggles — floods and droughts plunging millions into a humanitarian disaster — are rarely perceived as urgent.
“We might be the ones feeling the most impact of the climate crisis right now, but sooner or later everyone will,” she said.
Joy Koech, a Kenyan climate activist, laments the inattention given to Kenya’s climate crisis
For Pehnt from the German chapter, it can also be disheartening when the media brushes over political decisions that could be detrimental to the environment. Nevertheless, she thinks it’s important to use the opportunity to bring attention to climate issues when they overlap with major news stories.
“We try to combine the issues instead of reacting with frustration,” she said.
Fellow activist Luisa Neubauer would even go as far as saying that it is the movement’s duty to connect the dots for the public. In the case Ukraine’s war, it’s all about unmasking the energy debate.
“There won’t be real peace if there is an unsustainable world. There won’t be real peace and a world where our energy systems rely on the friendliness of an autocrat next door,” she said.
“That’s why peace and climate justice cannot be separated from each other.”
Edited by Tamsin Walker
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